The City of Fargo, North Dakota now faces the legal wrath of a Tennessee grandmother in the form of a federal lawsuit filed this week that alleges police improperly relied on AI facial recognition to accuse her of bank theft and jail her for six months last year.
U.S. Marshalls arrested at gunpoint Angela Lipps, a 50-year-old grandmother of five, in July 2025 while she was babysitting her neighbor’s children in her hometown of Elizabethton in east Tennessee.
As Breitbart News reported in March, her fugitive arrest warrant relied on facial recognition that Fargo detectives believed made her the primary suspect in the fraudulent withdrawal of tens of thousands of dollars from North Dakota banks.
The problem was Lipps had never stepped foot in Fargo, let alone North Dakota. In fact, according to the suit, until she was extradited to face charges she’d never even flown on a commercial flight.
Detectives didn’t find that out until after she was detained for several months in Tennessee and brought to North Dakota, according to the civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in that state.
Her charges were ultimately dropped, and she was released on Christmas Eve after Lipps and her attorney presented bank records showing she was in Tennessee at the time of the alleged crimes, according to the lawsuit.
The civil complaint names as defendants the city of Fargo and Lucas Heck, the police detective identified in the lawsuit as having requested Lipps’ arrest warrant. It seeks $10 million in damages to “repair what has been broken” and “seeks accountability” from the Fargo Police Department.
The police department’s facial recognition software matched Lipps’ social media photo to the photo on a fake ID used by a female suspect making fraudulent withdrawals from local banks.
However, bank surveillance footage of the suspect showed a different build and facial features than Lipps.
The complaint states:
They knew that AI facial recognition technology should not be used as the sole basis to extradite and charge a person. Yet they ignored those issues and gave no care to the harm it would do to innocent people like Lipps. As AI facial recognition technology becomes more accessible and widespread, Lipps hopes that her case will cause officers to use appropriate care and consider the harm their actions can have on those who are wrongly accused.
The grandmother alleges in the lawsuit she paid quite a price for the wrongful detention, including “traumatic conditions in the jails.”
The suit alleges:
She struggled with the fear of not knowing when she would be released or whether she would end up wrongly convicted and imprisoned for years. She missed family birthdays. She spent her own birthday incarcerated, separated from her family. She missed holidays with her loved ones, including Thanksgiving and Christmas. While in custody, she was denied basic care, such as her medications and her dentures.
Upon her release, Lipps learned she had lost her residence and her car, as well as other personal property, the lawsuit states.
It all could have been avoided with more thorough police work, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit claims that after Lipps was identified as a suspect, detective Heck conducted only a limited investigation before requesting the arrest warrant. It also alleges the Fargo Police Department (FPD) did not adequately train officers in the use of facial recognition technology.
According to the complaint, “FPD was aware that the lack of supervision of an officer using facial recognition in an investigation could result in the wrongful detention and prosecution of a subject. Despite knowledge of this risk, FPD refused to supervise its officers’ use of facial recognition technology in a criminal investigation.”
As a result, the suit continues, Lipps was detained for several months in Carter County, Tennessee, on a $100,000 bond she could not pay and was told she’d be facing eight years in prison on the bank charges.
Apparently, the grandmother had been in trouble before on an unrelated case in Tennessee that the lawsuit does not identify and was facing probation violations connected with her failing to report a new address. That matter was resolved before she was extradited to North Dakota, according to the complaint.
The experience continues to haunt Lipps, the lawsuit claims.
“Since the incident, she lives in fear that she will be abducted again and has been left with the knowledge that even though she was innocent, she is not safe,” the complaint states.
The city of Fargo and its police department has not responded to the lawsuit, with a spokesperson telling news outlets it “doesn’t comment on pending litigation.”
In March, then Fargo Police Chief Dave Zibollski admitted to reporters in a news conference that mistakes had been made during the bank investigation. He said the department doesn’t have its own facial recognition but submits unknown persons requests to a state intelligence center. He said the use of facial recognition technology for probable cause warrants has since been prohibited and promised more scrutiny on cases.
Chief Zibollsk, who retired that same month, said his own detectives were “upset” about the false arrest.
“What I know right now is that the persons involved are also very upset by this because they pride themselves on their thoroughness,” he told reporters. “No one wants to see someone detained, arrested unnecessarily, right? Our goal is to get the right people in custody and work through the justice system.”
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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